Released November 16, 1993 Producer Yves Beauvais Release date 16 November 1993 | Length 424:09 Label Rhino Entertainment | |
Recorded May 22, 1959 toMarch 27, 1961 Similar Ornette Coleman albums, Jazz albums |
Ornette coleman beauty is a rare thing
Beauty Is a Rare Thing is a compilation box set collecting all the master recordings made for Atlantic Records between 1959 and 1961 by the American jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman. The set was released on Rhino Records in 1993, and reissued in March 2015.
Contents
- Ornette coleman beauty is a rare thing
- Background
- Content
- Reception
- Track listing
- Personnel
- Additional personnel
- Songs
- References
Background
Prior to signing with Atlantic in 1959, Coleman and his group had recorded Something Else!!!! and Tomorrow Is the Question! for the Los Angeles-based label Contemporary Records. Coleman had not been completely pleased with either, and he found audiences dwindling at the Hillcrest Club (not the Hillcrest Country Club) in Los Angeles where he played regularly. However, one evening pianist John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet saw the Coleman group and immediately became an evangelist for Ornette's new approach, securing Coleman both a summer residency at the Tanglewood Music Center and a recording contract with the MJQ's label, Atlantic, through the label's executive in charge of jazz, Nesuhi Ertegun.
Recording sessions took place at Radio Recorders in Los Angeles on May 22, and October 8 and 9, 1959, at Atlantic Studios in New York City on July 19 and 26, and August 2, 1960, and January 31, and March 22 and 27, 1961, and at A&R Studios in New York on December 19, 20 and 21, 1960. The producer of the original recording sessions was Nesuhi Ertegun.
Content
The box presents the material in chronological recording order. The set includes the total tracks from all six of his Atlantic albums, The Shape of Jazz to Come (October 1959), Change of the Century (June 1960), This Is Our Music (February 1961), Free Jazz (September 1961), Ornette! (February 1962), and Ornette on Tenor (December 1962), as well as the later compilations The Art of the Improvisers (November 1970), Twins (October 1971), and the Japan-only To Whom Who Keeps A Record (1975). Two additional tracks were released on the Gunther Schuller album John Lewis Presents Contemporary Music: Jazz Abstractions – Compositions by Gunther Schuller and Jim Hall of 1961, and six previously unreleased performances appear here for the first time. The insert booklet contains text by Robert Palmer, forewords by Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry, as well as various quotes of reaction to Coleman's music by Paul Bley, Miles Davis, Roy Eldridge, Gil Evans, Maynard Ferguson, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Haden, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, John Lewis, Shelly Manne, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, and Thelonious Monk.
Reception
The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek states "this is, along with John Coltrane's Atlantic set and the Miles and Coltrane box, one of the most essential jazz CD purchases". The Penguin Guide to Jazz in all editions prior to its ninth awarded the set one of its rare crown accolades.
Track listing
All compositions by Ornette Coleman except "Embraceable You" by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, and "Abstraction" and "Variants on a Theme of Thelonious Monk" by Gunther Schuller.Personnel
Additional personnel
Songs
1Focus on Sanity6:52
2Chronology6:07
3Peace9:05